The Portal Closed 4: The Other Side

Previous: Searching for Answers



They spent hours looking at the papers before they had to go back to their childhoods, back to chores and schoolwork and things that, some days, seemed downright constraining.

Barbara’s mother, happy she was “taking some initiative” helped her put together a flyer for babysitting, and helped her post it at the Library - the proper downtown one, which had never been abandoned because, bright and shiny and brand-new, it didn’t tend to lose kids in its recesses.  It had no portals to other worlds.  Barbara had looked.

With three others posted  - grocery store, post office, and their church - Barbara returned home to some math homework that was only exciting if she thought about it in terms of national economies and some literature homework that was so stultifying she added in a 2-page book review of The Wealth of Nations.  Surely that counted as literature, didn’t it?

read on…

Hurt/Comfort: Minder

Written to R.Coots' prompt. Some bodily injury, but no serious violence and no real loss of consent. 

🤕

Ravi wasn’t exactly running, but he was hurrying.  He had someplace to be. He really had to get there soon, or he was going to lose yet another blind date to his own stupidi-

The crack in the sidewalk grabbed his foot and sent him sprawling.  Last pair of nice pants - ruined. Palms of his hands - ruined. Face - banged.  Chances at this date - gone.

“Oh, shit.  Look at you.”

He didn’t recognize the voice, but there were hands on him, lifting him up.  “Come on. You’re an absolute mess.”

“Nuala?”  He did recognize the voice.  Blind date #2. He’d spilled sauce on both of them.

read on…